Does a ChatBot built using QnA Maker API require Virtual Machine
While calculating the pricing for deploying a chatbot developed using QnA Maker, i am supposed to select the App Service Plan.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/pricing/calculator/
In the App Service section I am supposed to enter the following details Region, Tier, number of instances and hours.
What does the instances mean here and on what basis should i select the Tier.
Does deploying a basic QnA bot using QnA Maker API require an instance. (does the instance imply a VM instance).
Currently, the limit is a 20-MB knowledge base used by QnA Maker.
Thank you.
Back to definitions
There are 2 different things here:
- Your bot
- QnAMaker
In fact you are not "deploying a bot developed using QnAMaker", you are "deploying a bot developed with Microsoft Bot Framework and using QnAMaker".
Your bot is a web API, with a simple endpoint ("xxx/api/messages") accepting POST requests and which will be used by the bot connector. Then on some cases it's calling QnAMaker but this call is a bit hidden if you use QnAMakerDialog in C# for example.
Hosting / Costs
To host a Web API in Azure (called an App Service), you will need an App Service Plan. There are different levels of Azure App Service Plan, depending on your needs:
You just need to select the one corresponding to your needs, no other actions are necessary (what is behind (VMs...) is not your purpose).
For example if you just want to demonstrate the use of a bot with QnAMaker, a Free App Service Plan is enough.
For the QnAMaker part, it's only calls of your QnAMaker project in background. Your project is exposed through the web on an URL. The use of QnAMaker is free, at the time of writing this reply (it's still a preview)
Last (but not least), there can be an additional cost depending on the channels you will be using to expose your bot. See Azure calculator for bot service for that: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/bot-service/